Tuesday morning; rain at six; Jakes's typewriter at a quarter-past; the first cry of 'Boy' soon after.

'Boy,' shouted Corker. 'Where's my boy?'

'Your boy in plison,' said William's boy.

'Holy smoke, what's he been up to?'

'The police were angry with them,' said William's boy.

'Well, I want some tea.'

'All right. Just now.'

The Archbishop of Canterbury who, it is well known, is behind Imperial Chemicals... wrote Jakes.

Shumble, Whelper and Pigge awoke and breakfasted and dressed, but they scarcely spoke. 'Going out?' said Whelper at last.

'What d'you think?' said Shumble.

'Not sore about anything are you?' said Pigge.

'What d'you think?' said Shumble, leaving the room.

'He's sore,' said Pigge.

'About his story,' said Whelper.

'Who wouldn't be?' said Pigge.

Sir Jocelyn made himself some cocoa and opened a tin of tongue. He counted the remaining stores and found them adequate.

Presently William and Corker set out to look for news. 'Better try the station first,' said Corker, 'just in case the luggage has turned up.'

They got a taxi.

'Station,' said Corker.

'All right,' said the driver, making off through the rain down main street.

'Oh Christ, he's going to the Swede again.'

Sure enough, that was where they stopped.

'Good morning,' said Erik Olafsen. 'I am very delighted to see you. I am very delighted to see all my colleagues. They come so often. Almost whenever they take a taxi. Come in, please. Have you heard the news?'

'No,' said Corker.

'They are saying in the town that there was a Russian on the train on Saturday.'

'Yes, we've heard that one.'

'But it is a mistake.'

'You don't say.'

'Yes, indeed it is a mistake. The man was a Swiss ticket collector. I know him many years. But please to come in.'

William and Corker followed their host into his office. There was a stove in the corner, and on the stove a big coffee pot; the smell of coffee filled the room. Olafsen poured out three cupfuls.

'You are comfortable at the Liberty, yes, no?'

'No,' said William and Corker simultaneously.

'I suppose not,' said Olafsen. 'Mrs Jackson is a very religious woman. She comes every Sunday to our musical evening. But I suppose you are not comfortable. Do you know my friends Shumble and Whelper and Pigge?'

'Yes.'

'They are very nice gentlemen, and very clever. They say they are not comfortable, too.'

The thought of so much discomfort seemed to overwhelm the Swede. He gazed over the heads of his guests with huge, pale eyes that seemed to see illimitable, receding vistas of discomfort, and himself a blinded and shackled Samson with his bandages and bibles and hot, strong coffee scarcely able to shift a pebble from the vast mountain which oppressed humanity. He sighed.

The bell rang over the shop-door. Olafsen leapt to his feet. 'Excuse,' he said, 'the natives steal so terribly.'

But it was not a native. William and Corker could see the newcomer from where they sat in the office. She was a white woman; a girl. A straggle of damp gold hair clung to her cheek. She wore red gumboots, shiny and wet, spattered with the mud of the streets. Her mackintosh dripped on the linoleum and she carried a half open, dripping umbrella, held away from her side; it was short and old; when it was new it had been quite cheap. She spoke in German, bought something, and went out again into the rain.

'Who was the Garbo?' asked Corker when the Swede came back.

'She is a German lady. She has been here some time. She had a husband but I think she is alone now. He was to do some work outside the city but I do not think she knows where he is. I suppose he will not come back. She lives at the German pension with Frau Dressler. She came for some medicine.'

'Looks as though she needed it,' said Corker. 'Well we must go to the station.'

'Yes. There is a special train this evening. Twenty more journalists are arriving.'

'Christ.'

'For me it is a great pleasure to meet so many distinguished confrères. It is a great honour to work with them.'

'Decent bloke that,' said Corker, when they again drove off. 'You know, I never feel Swedes are really foreign. More like you and me, if you see what I mean.'

****

Three hours later Corker and William sat down to luncheon. The menu did not vary at the Liberty; sardines, beef and chicken for luncheon; soup, beef and chicken for dinner; hard, homogeneous cubes of beef, sometimes with Worcester Sauce, sometimes with tomato ketchup; fibrous spindles of chicken with grey-green dented peas.

'Don't seem to have any relish for my food,' said Corker. 'It must be the altitude.'

Everyone was in poor spirits; it had been an empty morning; the absence of Hitchcock lay heavy as thunder over the hotel, and there was a delay of fourteen hours in transmission at the wireless station for Wenlock Jakes had been letting himself go on the local colour.

'The beef's beastly,' said Corker. 'Tell the manageress to come here...'

At a short distance Jakes was entertaining three blacks. Everyone watched that table suspiciously and listened when they could, but he seemed to be talking mostly about himself. After a time the boy brought them chicken.

'Where's that manageress?' asked Corker.

'No come.'

'What d'you mean "no come"?'

'Manageress say only journalist him go boil himself,' said the boy more explicitly.

'What did I tell you? No respect for the Press. Savages.'

They left the dining-room. In the lounge, standing on one foot and leaning on his staff, was the aged warrior who delivered the telegrams. William's read:

PRESUME YOUR STEPTAKING INSURE SERVICE EVENT GENERAL UPBREAK.

'It's no good answering,' said Corker. 'They won't send till tomorrow morning. Come to think of it,' he added moodily, 'there's no point in answering anyway. Look at mine.'

CABLE FULLIER OFTENER PROMPTLIER STOP YOUR SERVICE BADLY BEATEN ALROUND LACKING HUMAN INTEREST COLOUR DRAMA PERSONALITY HUMOUR INFORMATION ROMANCE VITALITY.

'Can't say that's not frank, can you?' said Corker. 'God rot 'em.'

That afternoon he took Shumble's place at the card table. William slept.

****

The special train got in at seven. William went to meet it, as did everyone else.

The Ishmaelite Foreign Minister was there with his suite. ('Expecting a nob,' said Corker.) The Minister wore a bowler hat and ample military cape. The station-master set a little gilt chair for him where he sat like a daguerreotype, stiffly posed, a Victorian worthy in negative, black face, white whiskers, black hands. When the camera men began to shoot, his Staff scrambled to get to the front of the picture, eclipsing their chief. It was all the same to the camera men, who were merely passing the time and had no serious hope that the portrait would be of any interest.

At length the little engine came whistling round the bend, wood sparks dancing over the funnel. It stopped and at once the second- and third-class passengers--natives and near-whites--tumbled onto the platform, greeting their relatives with tears and kisses. The station police got in among them, jostling the levantines and whacking the natives with swagger-canes. The first-class passengers emerged more slowly; they had already acquired that expression of anxious resentment that was habitual to whites in Jacksonburg. They were all, every man-jack of them, journalists and photographers.

The distinguished visitor had not arrived. The Foreign Minister waited until the last cramped and cautious figure emerged from the first-class coach; then he exchanged civilities with the station-master and took his leave. The station police made a passage of a kind, but it was only with a struggle that he regained his car.

The porters began to unload and take the registered baggage to the customs shed. On the head of the foremost William recognized his bundle of cleft sticks; then more of his possessions--the collapsible canoe, the mistletoe, the ant-proof wardrobes. There was a cry of delight from Corker at his side. The missing van had arrived. Mysteriously it had become attached to the special train; had in fact been transposed. Somewhere, in a siding at one of the numerous stops down the line, lay the newcomers' luggage. Their distress deepened but Corker was jubilant and before dinner that evening introduced his elephant to a place of prominence in the bedroom. He also, in his good humour, introduced two photographers for whom he had an affection.

'Tight fit,' they said.

'Not at all,' said Corker. 'Delighted to have your company, aren't we, Boot?'

One of them took William's newly-arrived camp bed; the other expressed a readiness to 'doss down' on the floor for the night. Everyone decided to doss down in the Liberty. Mrs Jackson recommended other lodging available from friends of hers in the town. But, 'No,' they said, 'We've got to doss down with the bunch.'

The bunch now overflowed the hotel. There were close on fifty of them. All over the lounge and dining-room they sat and stood and leaned; some whispered to one another in what they took to be secrecy; others exchanged chaff and gin. It was their employers who paid for all this hospitality, but the conventions were decently observed--'My round, old boy.' 'No, no, my round'... 'Have this one on me.' 'Well the next is mine'--except by Shumble who, from habit, drank heartily and without return wherever it was offered.

'What are you all here for?' asked Corker petulantly of a newcomer. 'What's come over them at home? What's supposed to be going on, anyway?'

'It's ideological. And we're only half of it. There's twenty more at the coast who couldn't get on the train. Weren't they sick at seeing us go? It's lousy on the coast.'

'It's lousy here.'

'Yes, I see what you mean...'

There was not much sleep that night for anyone in William's room. The photographer who was dossing down found the floor wet and draughty and, as the hours passed, increasingly hard. He turned from side to side, lay flat on his back, then on his face. At each change of position he groaned as though in agony. Every now and then he turned on the light to collect more coverings. At dawn, when the rain began to drip near his head, he was dozing uneasily, fully dressed in overcoat and tweed-cap, enveloped in every available textile including the tablecloth, the curtains and Corker's two oriental shawls. Nor did the other photographer do much better; the camp bed seemed less stable than William had supposed when it was sold to him; perhaps it was wrongly assembled; perhaps essential parts were still missing. Whatever the reason, it collapsed repeatedly and roused William's apprehensions of the efficacy of his canoe.

Early next morning he rang up Bannister and, on his advice, moved to Frau Dressler's pension. 'Bad policy, brother,' said Corker, 'but since you're going I wonder if you'll take charge of my curios. I don't at all like the way Shumble's been looking at them.'

****

The Pension Dressler stood in a side street and had, at first glance, the air rather of a farm than of an hotel. Frau Dressler's pig, tethered by the hind trotter to the jamb of the front door, roamed the yard and disputed the kitchen scraps with the poultry. He was a prodigious beast. Frau Dressler's guests prodded him appreciatively on their way to the dining-room, speculating on how soon he would be ripe for killing. The milch-goat was allowed a narrower radius; those who kept strictly to the causeway were safe, but she never reconciled herself to this limitation and, day in, day out, essayed a series of meteoric onslaughts on the passers-by, ending, at the end of her rope, with a jerk which would have been death to an animal of any other species. One day the rope would break; she knew it and so did Frau Dressler's guests.

There was also a gander, the possession of the night watchman, and a three-legged dog, who barked furiously from the mouth of a barrel and was said to have belonged to the late Herr Dressler. Other pets came and went with Frau Dressler's guests--baboons, gorillas, cheetahs--all inhabited the yard in varying degrees of liberty and moved uneasily for fear of the milch-goat.

As a consequence perhaps of the vigour of the livestock, the garden had not prospered. A little bed, edged with inverted bottles, produced nothing except, annually, a crop of the rank, scarlet flowers which burst out everywhere in Jacksonburg at the end of the rains. Two sterile banana palms grew near the kitchens and between them a bush of Indian hemp which the cook tended and kept for his own indulgence. The night watchman, too, had a little shrub, to whose seed-pods he attributed intoxicant properties.

Architecturally, the Pension Dressler was a mess. There were three main buildings disposed irregularly in the acre of ground--single storied, tin roofed, constructed of timber and rubble, with wooden verandahs; the two larger were divided into bedrooms; the smallest contained the dining-room, the parlour and the mysterious, padlocked room where Frau Dressler slept. Everything of value or interest in the pension was kept in this room and whatever was needed by anyone--money, provisions, linen, back numbers of European magazines--could be produced, on demand, from under Frau Dressler's bed. There was a hut called the bathroom, where, after due notice and the recruitment of extra labour, a tin tub could be filled with warm water and enjoyed in the half-darkness among a colony of bats. There was the kitchen not far from the other buildings, a place of smoke and wrath, loud with Frau Dressler's scolding. And there were the servants' quarters--a cluster of thatched cabins, circular, windowless, emitting at all hours a cosy smell of woodsmoke and curry; the centre of a voluble round of hospitality which culminated often enough in the late evening with song and rhythmical clapping. The night watchman had his own lair where he lived morosely with two wrinkled wives. He was a tough old warrior who passed his brief waking hours in paring the soles of his feet with his dagger or buttering the bolt of his ancient rifle.

Frau Dressler's guests varied from three to a dozen in number. They were Europeans, mostly of modest means and good character. Frau Dressler had lived all her life in Africa and had a sharp nose for the unfortunate. She had drifted here from Tanganyika after the war, shedding Herr Dressler, none knew exactly where or how, on her way. There were a number of Germans in Jacksonburg employed in a humble way in the cosmopolitan commercial quarter. Frau Dressler was their centre. She allowed them to come in on Saturday evenings after the guests had dined, to play cards or chess and listen to the wireless. They drank a bottle of beer apiece; sometimes they only had coffee, but there was no place for the man who tried to get away without spending. At Christmas there was a decorated tree and a party which the German Minister attended and subsidized. The missionaries always recommended Frau Dressler to visitors in search of cheap and respectable lodgings.

She was a large shabby woman of unbounded energy. When William confronted her she was scolding a group of native peasants from the dining-room steps. The meaning of her words was hidden from William; from the peasants also, for she spoke Ishmaelite, and bad Ishmaelite at that, while they knew only a tribal patois; but the tone was unmistakable. The peasants did not mind. This was a daily occurrence. Always at dawn they appeared outside Frau Dressler's dining-room and exposed their wares--red peppers, green vegetables, eggs, poultry, and fresh local cheese. Every hour or so Frau Dressler asked them their prices and told them to be off. Always at half-past eleven, when it was time for her to begin cooking the mid-day dinner, she made her purchases at the price which all parties had long ago decided would be the just one.

'They are thieves and impostors,' she said to William. 'I have been fifteen years in Jacksonburg and they still think they can cheat. When I first came I paid the most wicked prices--two American dollars for a lamb; ten cents a dozen for eggs. Now I know better.'

William said that he wanted a room. She received him cordially and led him across the yard. The three-legged dog barked furiously from his barrel; the milch-goat shot out at him like a cork from a popgun, and, like it, was brought up short at the end of her string; the night watchman's gander hissed and ruffled his plumage. Frau Dressler picked up a loose stone and caught him square in the chest. 'They are playful,' she explained, 'particularly the goat.'

They gained the verandah, sheltered from rain and livestock. Frau Dressler threw open a door. There was luggage in the bedroom, a pair of woman's stockings across the foot of the bed, a woman's shoes against the wall. 'We have a girl here at the moment. She shall move.'

'Oh but please... I don't want to turn anyone out.'

'She shall move,' repeated Frau Dressler. 'It's my best room. There is everything you want here.'

William surveyed the meagre furniture; the meagre, but still painfully superfluous ornaments. 'Yes', he said. 'Yes, I suppose there is.'

****

A train of porters carried William's luggage from the Hotel Liberty. When it was all assembled, it seemed to fill the room. The men stood on the verandah waiting to be paid. William's own boy had absented himself on the first signs of packing. Frau Dressler drove them off with a few copper coins and a torrent of abuse. 'You had better give me anything of value,' she said to William, 'the natives are all villains.'

He gave her Corker's objects of art; she carried them off to her room and stored them safely under the bed. William began to unpack. Presently there was a knock outside. The door opened. William had his back to it. He was kneeling over his ant-proof chest.

'Please,' said a woman's voice. William turned round. 'Please may I have my things?'

It was the girl he had seen the day before at the Swedish mission. She wore the same mackintosh, the same splashed gumboots. She seemed to be just as wet. William jumped to his feet.

'Yes, of course, please let me help.'

'Thank you. There's not very much. But this one is heavy. It has some of my husband's things.'

She took her stockings from the end of the bed. Ran her hand into one and showed him two large holes, smiled, rolled them into a ball and put them in the pocket of her raincoat. 'This is the heavy one,' she said, pointing to a worn leather bag. William attempted to lift it. It might have been full of stone. The girl opened it. It was full of stone. 'They are my husband's specimens,' she said. 'He wants me to be very careful of them. They are very important. But I don't think anyone could steal them. They are so heavy.'

William succeeded in dragging the bag across the floor. 'Where to?'

'I have a little room by the kitchen. It is up a ladder. It will be difficult to carry the specimens. I wanted Frau Dressler to keep them in her room but she did not want to. She said they were of no value. You see, she is not an engineer.'

'Would you like to leave them here?'

Her face brightened. 'May I? It would be very kind. That is what I hoped, but I did not know what you would be like. They said you were a journalist.'

'So I am.'

'The town is full of journalists but I should not have thought you were one.'

'I can't think why Frau Dressler has put me in this room,' said William. 'I should be perfectly happy anywhere else. Did you want to move?'

'I must move. You see this is Frau Dressler's best room. When I came here it was with my husband. Then she gave us the best room. But now he is at work so I must move. I do not want a big room now I am alone. But it would be very kind if you would keep our specimens.'

There was a suitcase which belonged to her. She opened it and threw in the shoes and other woman's things that lay about the room. When it was full she looked from it to the immense pile of trunks and crates, and smiled. 'It is all I have,' she said. 'Not like you.'

She went over to the pile of cleft sticks. 'How do you use these?'

'They are for sending messages.'

'You're teasing me.'

'No, indeed I'm not. Lord Copper said I was to send my messages with them.'

The girl laughed. 'How funny. Have all the journalists got sticks like this?'

'Well, no; to tell you the truth I don't believe they have.'

'How funny you are.' Her laugh became a cough. She sat on the bed and coughed until her eyes were full of tears. 'Oh, dear. It is so long since I laughed and now it hurts me... What is in this?'

'A canoe.'

'Now I know you are teasing me.'

'Honestly it's a canoe. At least they said it was at the shop. Look, I'll show you.'

Together they prised up the lid of the case and filled the floor with shavings and wads of paper. At last they found a neat roll of cane and proofed canvas.

'It is a tent,' she said.

'No a canoe. Look.'

They spread the canvas on the floor. With great difficulty they assembled the framework of jointed cane. Twice they had to stop when the girl's laughter turned to a paroxysm of coughing. At last it was finished and the little boat rose in a sea of shavings. 'It is a canoe,' she cried. 'Now I will believe you about those sticks. I will believe everything you tell me. Look, these are seats. Get in, quick, we must get in.'

They sat opposite one another in the boat, their knees touching.

The girl laughed, clear and loud, and this time did not cough. 'But it's beautiful,' she said. 'And so new. I have not seen anything so new since I came to this city. Can you swim?'

'Yes.'

'So can I. I swim very well. So it will not matter if we are upset. Give me one of the message sticks and I will row you...'

'Do I intrude?' asked Corker. He was standing on the verandah outside the window, leaning into the room.

'Oh dear,' said the girl.

She and William left the boat and stood among the shavings.

'We were just trying the canoe,' William explained.

'Yes,' said Corker. 'Whimsical. How about trying the mistletoe?'

'This is Mr Corker, a fellow journalist.'

'Yes, yes. I see he is. I must go away now.'

'Not Garbo,' said Corker. 'Bergner.'

'What does he mean?'

'He says you are like a film star.'

'Does he? Does he really say that.' Her face, clouded at Corker's interruption, beamed. 'That is how I should like to be. Now I must go. I will send a boy for the valise.'

She went, pulling the collar of her raincoat close round her throat.

'Not bad, brother, not bad at all. I will say you're a quick worker. Sorry to barge in on the tender scene, but there's trouble afoot. Hitchcock's story has broken. He's at the fascist headquarters scooping the world.'

'Where?'

'Town called Laku.'

'But he can't be. Bannister told me there was no such place.'

'Well there is now, old boy. At this very moment it's bang across the front page of the Daily Brute and it's where we are all going or know the reason why. A meeting of the Foreign Press Association has been called for six this evening at the Liberty. Feeling is running very high in the bunch.'

****

The German girl came back.

'Is the journalist gone?'

'Yes. I am sorry. I'm afraid he was rather rude.'

'Was he teasing, or did he really mean I was like a film star?'

'I'm sure he meant it.'

'Do you think so too?' She leaned on the dressing-table studying her face in the mirror. She pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen over her forehead; she turned her head on one side, smiled at herself, put out her tongue. 'Do you think so?'

'Yes, very like a film star.'

'I am glad.' She sat on the bed. 'What's your name?'

William told her.

'Mine is Kätchen,' she said. 'You must put away the boat. It is in the way and it makes us seem foolish.'

Together they dismembered the frame and rolled up the canvas. 'I have something to ask,' she said. 'What do you think is the value of my husband's specimens?'

'I'm afraid I have no idea.'

'He said they were very valuable.'

'I expect they are.'

'Ten English pounds?'

'I daresay.'

'More? Twenty?'

'Possibly.'

'Then I will sell them to you. It is because I like you. Will you give me twenty pounds for them?'

'Well, you know, I've got a great deal of luggage already. I don't know quite what I should do with them.'

'I know what you are thinking--that it is wrong for me to sell my husband's valuable specimens. But he has been away for six weeks now and he left me with only eight dollars. Frau Dressler is becoming most impolite. I am sure he would not want Frau Dressler to be impolite. So this is what we will do. You shall buy them and then, when my husband comes back and says they are worth more than twenty pounds, you will pay him the difference. There will be nothing wrong in that, will there? He could not be angry?'

'No, I don't think he could possibly be angry about that.'

'Good. Oh, you have made me glad that you came here. Please, will you give me the money now? Have you an account at the bank?'

'Yes.'

'Then write a cheque. I will take it to the bank myself. Then it will be no trouble to you.'

When she had gone, William took out his expense sheet and dutifully entered the single, enigmatic item: 'Stones... £20.'

****

Every journalist in Jacksonburg, except Wenlock Jakes, who had sent Paleologue to represent him, attended the meeting of the Foreign Press Association; all, in their various tongues, voluble with indignation. The hotel boys pattered amongst them with trays of whisky; the air was pungent and dark with tobacco smoke. Pappenhacker was in the chair, wearily calling for order. 'Order, gentlemen, Attention, je vous en prie. Order, please. Messieurs, gentlemen...'

'Order, order,' shouted Pigge, and Pappenhacker's voice was drowned in cries for silence.

'...secretary to read the minutes of the last meeting.'

The voice of the secretary could occasionally be heard above the chatter. '...held at the Hotel Liberty... Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock in the chair... resolution... unanimously passed... protest in the most emphatic manner against... Ishmaelite government... militates against professional activities...

'...objections to make or questions to ask about these minutes...'

The correspondents for Paris-soir and Havas objected and after a time the minutes were signed. Pappenhacker was again on his feet. 'Gentlemen, in the absence of Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock...'

Loud laughter and cries of 'Shame'.

'Mr Chairman, I must protest that this whole question is being treated with highly undesirable levity.'

'Translate.'

'On traite toute la question avec une légèrité indésirable.'

'Thank you, Mr Porter...'

'If you pliss to spik Sherman...'

'Italiano... piacere...'

'...tutta domanda con levita spiacevole...'

'...Sherman...'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen, Doctor Benito has consented to meet us here in a few minutes and it is essential that I know the will of the meeting so that I can present our demands in proper form.'

At this stage one half of the audience--those nearest to William--were distracted from the proceedings by an altercation, unconnected with the business in hand, between two rival photographers.

'Did you call me a scab?'

'I did not, but I will.'

'You will?'

'Sure, you're a scab. Now what?'

'Call me a scab outside.'

'I call you a scab here.'

'Say that outside and see what you'll get.'

Cries of 'Shame' and 'Aw, pipe down.'

****

'...gravely affecting our professional status. We welcome fair and free competition... obliged to enforce coercive measures...'

'Go on, sock me one and see what you get.'

'I don't want to sock you one. You sock me first.'

'Aw, go sock him one.'

'Just you give me a poke in the nose and see what you'll get.'

****

'...Notre condition professionnelle. Nous souhaitons la bienvenue à toute la competition égal et libre.'

****

'...Nostra condizione professionale...'

****

'You poke me in the nose.'

'Aw, why can't you boys sock each other and be friendly?'

'Resolution before the meeting... protest against the breach of faith on the part of the Ishmaelite government and demand that all restrictions on their movements be instantly relaxed. I call for a show of hands on this resolution.'

'Mr Chairman, I object to the whole tone of this resolution.'

'May I propose the amendment that facilities be withheld from Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock until we have had time to get level with him.'

'...demand an enquiry into how and from whom he received his permission to travel and the punishment of the responsible official...'

'I protest Mr Chairman, that the whole tone is peremptory and discourteous.'

'...The motion as amended reads...'

Then Doctor Benito arrived; he came from the main entrance and the journalists fell back to make way. It was William's first sight of him. He was short and brisk and self-possessed; soot black in face, with piercing boot-button eyes; he wore a neat black suit; his linen and his teeth were brilliantly white; he carried a little black attaché case; in the lapel of his coat he wore the button of the Star of Ishmaelia, fourth class. As he passed through them the journalists were hushed; it was as though the head-mistress had suddenly appeared among an unruly class of schoolgirls. He reached the table, shook Pappenhacker by the hand and faced his audience with a flash of white teeth.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I will speak first in English' the correspondents of Havas and Paris-soir began to protest, 'after that in French.'

'I have a communication to make on the part of the President. He wishes to state first that he reserves for himself absolutely the right to maintain or relax the regulations he has made for the comfort and safety of the Press, either generally or in individual cases. Secondly, that, so far, no relaxation of these regulations has been made in any case. If, as is apparently believed, a journalist has left Jacksonburg for the interior it is without the Government's consent or knowledge. Thirdly, that the roads to the interior are at the moment entirely unfit for travel, provisions are impossible to obtain and travellers would be in danger from disaffected elements of the population. Fourthly, that he has decided, in view of the wishes of the foreign Press, to relax the restrictions he has hitherto made. Those wishing to do so, may travel to the interior. They must first apply formally to my bureau where the necessary passes will be issued and steps taken for their protection. That is all, gentlemen.'

He then repeated his message in accurate French, bowed and left the meeting in deep silence. When he had gone Pappenhacker said, 'Well gentlemen, I think that concludes our evening's business in a very satisfactory manner,' but it was with a dissatisfied air that the journalists left the hotel for the wireless station.

'A triumph for the power of the Press,' said Corker. 'They caved in at once.'

'Yes,' said William.

'You sound a bit doubtful, brother.'

'Yes.'

'I know what you're thinking of--something in Benito's manner. I noticed it too. Nothing you could actually take hold of, but he seemed kind of superior to me.'

'Yes,' said William.

They sent off their service messages. William wrote: THEY HAVE GIVEN US PERMISSION TO GO TO LAKU AND EVERYONE IS GOING BUT THERE IS NO SUCH PLACE AM I TO GO TOO SORRY TO BE A BORE BOOT.

Corker more succinctly: PERMISSION GRANTED LAKUWARD.

That night the wireless carried an urgent message in similar terms from every journalist in Jacksonburg.

William and Corker returned to the Liberty for a drink. All the journalists were having drinks. The two photographers were clinking glasses and slapping one another on the shoulder. Corker reverted to the topic that was vexing him. 'What's that blackamoor got to be superior about?' he asked moodily. 'Funny that you noticed it too.'

****

Next day Corker brought William a cable: UNPROCEED LAKUWARD STOP AGENCIES COVERING PATRIOTIC FRONT STOP REMAIN CONTACTING CUMREDS STOP NEWS EXYOU UNRECEIVED STOP DAILY HARD NEWS ESSENTIALLEST STOP REMEMBER RATES SERVICE CABLES ONE ETSIX PER WORD BEAST.

Kätchen stood at his elbow as he read it. 'What does it mean?' she asked.

'I'm to stay in Jacksonburg.'

'Oh, I am pleased.'

William answered the cable:

NO NEWS AT PRESENT THANKS WARNING ABOUT CABLING PRICES BUT IVE PLENTY MONEY LEFT AND ANYWAY WHEN I OFFERED TO PAY WIRELESS MAN SAID IT WAS ALL RIGHT PAID OTHER END RAINING HARD HOPE ALL WELL ENGLAND WILL CABLE AGAIN IF ANY NEWS.

Then he and Kätchen went to play ping-pong at Popotakis's.

****

The journalists left.

For three days the town was in turmoil. Lorries were chartered and provisioned; guides engaged; cooks and guards and muleteers and caravan-boys and hunters, cooks' boys, guards' boys, muleteers' boys, caravan-boys' boys and hunters' boys were recruited at unprecedented rates of pay; all over the city, in the offices and legations, resident Europeans found themselves deserted by their servants; seminarists left the missions, male-nurses the hospital, highly placed clerks their government departments, to compete for the journalists' wages. The price of benzine was doubled overnight and rose steadily until the day of the exodus. Terrific deals were done in the bazaar in tinned foodstuffs; they were cornered by a Parsee and unloaded on a Banja, cornered again by an Arab, resold and rebought, before they reached the journalists' stores. Shumble bought William's rifle and sold a half share in it to Whelper. Everyone now emulated the costume of the Frenchmen; sombreros, dungarees, jodhpurs, sunproof shirts and bulletproof waistcoats, holsters, bandoliers, Newmarket boots, cutlasses, filled the Liberty. The men of the Excelsior Movie-Sound News sporting the horsehair capes and silk skirts of native chieftains, made camp in the Liberty garden and photographed themselves at great length in attitudes of vigilance and repose. Paleologue made his pile.

There was an evening of wild indignation when it was falsely put around that Jakes had been lent a balloon by the Government for his journey. There was an evening of anxiety when, immediately before the day fixed for their departure, the journalists were informed that the passes for their journey had not yet received the stamp of the Ministry of the Interior. A meeting of the Press Association was hastily called; it passed a resolution of protest and dissolved in disorder. Late that evening Doctor Benito delivered the passes in person. They were handsome, unintelligible documents printed in Ishmaelite and liberally decorated with rubber stamps, initials, and patriotic emblems. Benito brought one to William at the Pension Dressler.

'I'm not going after all,' William explained.

'Not going, Mr Boot? But your pass is here, made out in order.'

'Sorry if it has caused extra work, but my editor has told me to stay on here.'

An expression of extreme annoyance came over the affable, black face.

'But your colleagues have made every arrangement. It is very difficult for my bureau if the journalists do not keep together. You see your pass to Laku automatically cancels your permission to remain in Jacksonburg. I'm afraid, Mr Boot, it will be necessary for you to go.'

'Oh, rot,' said William. 'For one thing there is no such place as Laku.'

'I see you are very well informed about my country, Mr Boot. I should not have thought it from the tone of your newspaper.'

William began to dislike Doctor Benito.

'Well, I'm not going. Will you be good enough to cancel the pass and renew my permission for Jacksonburg?'

There was a pause; then the white teeth flashed in a smile.

'But, of course, Mr Boot. It will be a great pleasure, I cannot hope to offer you anything of much interest during your visit. As you have seen we are a very quiet little community. The Academic year opens at Jackson College. General Gollancz Jackson is celebrating his silver wedding. But I do not think any of these things are of great importance in Europe. I am sure your colleagues in the interior will find far more exciting matter for their despatches. Are you sure nothing can make you alter your decision?'

'Quite sure.'

'Very well.' Doctor Benito turned to go. Then he paused. 'By the way, have you communicated to any of your colleagues your uncertainty about the existence of the city of Laku?'

'Yes, but they wouldn't listen.'

'I suppose not. Perhaps they have more experience in their business. Good-night.'

****

Next morning, at dawn, the first lorry started. It was shared by Corker and Pigge. They sat in front with the driver. They had been drinking heavily and late the night before and, in the grey light, showed it. Behind among the crates and camp furniture lay six torpid servants.

William rose to see them off. They had kept the time of their departure a secret. Everyone, the evening before, had spoken casually of 'making a move at tennish,' but when William arrived at the Liberty the whole place was astir. Others beside Pigge and Corker conceived that an advantage might come from a few hours start; all the others. Corker and Pigge were away first, by a negligible margin. One after another their colleagues took the road behind them. Pappenhacker drove a little two seater he had bought from the British Legation. Many of the cars flew flags of Ishmaelia and of their own countries. One lorry was twice the size of any other; it rode gallantly on six wheels; its sides were armour-plated; it had been purchased, irregularly and at enormous expense, from the War Office and bore in vast letters of still tacky paint the inscription: EXCELSIOR MOVIE-SOUND EXPEDITIONARY UNIT TO THE ISHMAELITE IDEOLOGICAL FRONT.

During these latter days the rains had notably declined, giving promise of spring. The clouds lay high over the town; revealing a wider horizon and, as the cavalcade disappeared from view, the road to Laku lay momentarily bathed in sunshine. William waved them goodbye from the steps of the Jackson memorial and turned back towards the Pension Dressler, but as he went the sky darkened and the first drops began to fall.

He was at breakfast when his boy reported. 'All come back.'

'Who?'

'All newspaper fellows come back. Soldiers catch 'em one time and take 'em plison.'

William went out to investigate.

Sure enough the lorries were lined up outside the police station and inside, each with an armed guard, sat the journalists. They had found the barricades of the town shut against them; the officer in charge had not been warned to expect them; he had been unable to read their passes and they were all under arrest.

At ten, when Doctor Benito began his day's routine at the Press Bureau, he received them apologetically but blandly. 'It is a mistake,' he said. 'I regret it infinitely. I understood that you proposed to start at ten. If I had known that you intended to start earlier I would have made the necessary arrangements. The night-guard have orders to let no one through. You will now find the day-guard on duty. They will present arms as you pass. I have given special instructions to that effect. Goodbye gentlemen and a good journey.'

Once more the train of lorries set off; rain was now falling hard. Corker and Pigge still led; Wenlock Jakes came last in a smart touring car. William waved; the populace whistled appreciatively; at the gates of the city the guard slapped the butts of their carbines. William once more turned to the Pension Dressler; the dark clouds opened above him; the gutters and wet leaves sparkled in sunlight and a vast, iridescent fan of colour, arc beyond arc of splendour, spread across the heavens. The journalists had gone, and a great peace reigned in the city.